Shortcut Communications Ch. III

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Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.
Sir Winston Churchill, (1874-1965)

You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
Al Capone, (1899-1947)

New school. New life. New mission. Hmph. New me, please.

The hallways were packed. Absolutely swarming. There was just something about "American" schools. It was what, three hundred years after the dissolution of the country, and they still couldn't be labeled as anything else. Not even the brief glimpse I had of school on L2, the supposedly "American" colony, was like this.

I shook my head, the heavy weight of my braid rippling a split second later. I was "hovering" in the doorway to the administration offices, somewhat daunted by the sheer mass. There were darting bodies, and calmly moving students, all of them laden with books or book bags or even other students. How the hell did they get anything into their heads with this racket going on?

This was worse than just about anything else I'd ever seen. Take about two thousand to twenty-five hundred teenagers all intent on their own thing, with their own alliances and disputes, their own necessary routes to avoid further disputes or to make new alliances, give them a short time limit to get to a designated spot, with consequences should you not be there on time, give them small hallways and moving obstacles in the form of administration, (hall-watch,) and this is what you get. It was worse than a battle at full stride. At least there the lines were delineated. Yeah, me against all of them. A dart of color flashed by, closely pursued by three older boys, great hulking brutes. Geeze, what is with this place? Note to self: don't ever enroll in a public school in North America again. Ever. Why did I let you talk me into this, Professor? I looked at the map I held again, then looked up, sighing, as I prepared myself to brave the sea of humanity that roiled in front of me.

I didn't really need to look at the map again, but I'd found out a long time ago that if you picked up things too fast, it was worse than if you did it too slow. My memory had always been a blessing, as Sister would have said...but it could also be a curse in disguise. I mean, when does anyone ever think about having to slow down how fast you've got something memorized? Except for me. I remember everything, I notice everything. And ever since I first landed on the streets, feet-first, I've learned, sometimes slowly, that everything gets hidden. You don't give anything away, not to anybody. They could be as close to me as God is to some Christians, and I still won't tell them all my secrets. Never again.

I shook my head as I stepped out and prepared to force my way through the kids that crowded around me. If I dwelled upon my personal demons, I wouldn't be able to give myself my own defense. Remember, Kid, don't do anything but smile. Even if they shoot you, smile. Funny, how as my speaking skills increased in their abilities and scope, my internal voice did too, losing that street brogue that had filled my entire childhood. Down to the end of this hall, take a left...okay, three doors on the right, should be doubles...oh, they're open, kids everywhere...geeze-us, where the fuck do they all go? A shrill ring broke out above me, and I could barely manage to keep myself from pulling on it—a second before I remembered where the fuck I was. No gun pulling in crowded hallways, no sirree. Suddenly, my senses were on hyper alert, thanks a helluva lot to that fucking bell, and, I noticed, the switch in the students. Instead of just the ridiculously frantic pace from before, now they were all tearing down the halls in an insane scramble. Well, I must be late. I came even with my new class, the door was open, a rush of talking coming from it, and I could see the light move in interesting ways across the floor from where I stood behind the doorjamb, so they must still be settling down, still moving all over the place in there. I stood where I was, just out of sight, and ran a hand through my bangs and over the top of my braid before I pasted a great smile on. I was wishing for my hat again—I seemed to be doing that a whole lot lately. Hell, man, it's just a class. Get over it! Shit, I mean, come on

I gave my shoulders a mental squaring, controlling the impulse that hit me to do it for real, to pull my shoulders outta that nice slump they had going for them. No, something so silly as this wouldn't slip past my self-control. Forget it. Don't show them. Don't show anybody. Say hiya, I'm insert name here, and I'm new, been assigned to this class. And the teacher will say: Hi Mr. name, why don't you sit next to such-and-such there. Just like they always do. This was what, the fifth, sixth, school I'd stayed at for a mission? And they were like fuckin' broken records. But I was still wishing for that stupid hat. Sure, hiding out in the open's a great idea, but that didn't mean I had to like it, no way.

Okay, Maxwell, that's enough stalling already. I restrained the deep breath I wanted to inhale, instead stepping calmly into the classroom, a friendly, open smile spread across my already open face. And then I resisted the urge to shrink when everyone facing the door shut up and looked at me, the suddenly unknown, etc., etc. Which figured—there were, quick count, nice long sweep, make it look just like you're checking out the relative coolness of the new classroom—nineteen students in Advanced Calculus. Imagine. And shit, I'm obviously the youngest in here. And they knew it already. If it's one thing I can't do, I can't fool my own age group about my age. Give me an adult, any adult, and I can act two or twenty, but these guys, not a chance. The "youngest" thing is gonna stick me, I can already feel it, way down to my grungy, bare-footed toes still stuck in that gutter. Those toes're sayin' run, they're gonna eat ya' fuckin' alive.

But I smiled anyway, and acted as close as I could to a vapid, get-ahead teenager, and walked up, nice and cocky, shoulders artistically shrugged, and held out my "papers". God, now I sound like I'm a puppy from the pound.

"Hi! I'm new, just got transferred, and they said this is my class." The teacher, nice, fairly attractive woman, must work out, I don't have biceps like her, friendly smile, little vicious around the edges, too many years as a teacher, held out one hand for the papers while the other, pencil still firmly gripped, never moved off the paper—ah, grade book. Must be roll-calling. I didn't even bother hiding the quick glance I threw at the page where she was marking; she was the only one to see, and she was looking down. Well, well, well. Three people absent. That makes twenty-two, plus me, twenty-three all told, in the ACalc class. And this'll be useful to know when

"Okay, just hold on a second while I finish this up." She also never looked up at me.

"Sure, no prob." I made sure the papers made it to her hand, and gave the side of her head a beaming smile. The papers got me an absent nod, as she continued to scan the book in front of her, and then, reaching the end, looked up at the class—talking again, I was only worth a minute and four seconds of silence.

"Has anyone seen Brit?" Shaking heads. "No? How about Amy? Or Sarah?" More negatives. "Okay." She dropped the pencil on the book's page, and brought her left hand in front of her, looking me in the face for the first time as she did. "New, huh? Where're you comin' from, kid?" What, her eyes were broken? If she'd look at the paper, she'd see.

Ah, but then...yeah. I just smiled, as usual, and started in. "Actually, I'm from overseas."

Her "look-over" of me sharpened, and I could see her eyes flick back up to my face when she saw the end of my braid peeking out from behind me. When she was meeting my eyes again, her eyebrows raised. "Overseas? Wow."

Despite the attention that cover got me, it was a good idea to use it. After all, by using that, it'd let me get away with things, because it could be written off to already being foreign, and they wouldn't really think about the colony angle. So I'd begun using that even if I just skipped towns. I'd tell anyone who asked that I was just in, and whoever they were, from the mailman, to the landlord, or the hotel lobby manager, they'd just somehow completely miss the stuff I knew I couldn't hide. When I'd stumbled across it, it amazed me, truly, because they were so ridiculous about it, ignoring an amazing amount of evidence to the contrary, and took your word, because it was already so different. But hey, it was in my favor, so I was sure as hell gonna use it.

"Yeah, I just transferred in from New Zealand, and all over the place before that."

"Yeah? That's really cool." She'd been gathering up stuff around her, straightening things out a little bit. My name was snagged off the papers and written on the line after her last student, in her little book. "So, Duo Maxwell. Welcome to Midville High."

She'd gone on a little bit longer, but really, it was just the, "well, lemme find this and that, and, oh, take a seat by so-and-so, etc, etc." I listened, but zoned it out, watching the students around me. They got back to their lesson, after she'd made sure I was up to date with them. I proved it, by giving the correct answer to her little warm-up question. It was a lower level equation, nothing I didn't know how to do in my sleep. Never had a problem with book work. I don't really know why, but G was always pushing me harder and harder. I'd kept up, and that, to me, was all that mattered.

Thos kids, in that class...they were so normal, that classic definition of "normal". They had mothers, and fathers, and when they didn't, it was for normal reasons. This little corner of the world hadn't been hit heavy with the fighting. The reasoning for having a base here, I'm sure. I wonder how many civilian personnel worked in the labs. I knew, now, that the label "civilian" didn't really apply. After all, they were still contributing to the efforts of OZ, and that, therefore, made them fair game. Good enough for me.

Those normal kids. God. They'd stumbled me, with their little, petty concerns, and the sheer mass of them. So many people, completely fine living in their little, fragile glass balls. Like snowflakes. All it would take is one touch from me, or any of us, and we could pop those bubbles. I guess our hands were too wet in too wrong a liquid. But I envied those kids, in their world. So normal. Which I could never have claimed to be.

Heh. Wu Fei's already gotten back to me. He must've been pretty close to my last location, because he's not the one who'd been sent the question directly. According to his flash file, he'd had a wife before this. Just great. Maybe it could be intuitively told that he'd not had marital bliss, but...

As per the standard, his face popped up, nice, habitually, condescendingly blank look in evidence. "You know, one of these days, that's gonna stick like that." My rear screens showed the blooming flames a split second after I felt the shockwave through my seat, and my controls. Wu Fei, in his recorded glory, didn't even know I'd just blown up four billion dollars' worth of equipment, data and personnel.

I had to stop the recording, because he'd started talking, and I couldn't hear him, I'd been too busy talking to thin air, and admiring the lovely glow behind me. I think it's no doubt that I have a slight chemical fetish. Especially for volatile liquids. Too bad they smell so funny.

Ah, yes, Wu Fei's response.

"When I was fourteen, the Alliance, though it was really OZ, decided to 'clean up' my colony." Well, wasn't that an opening. I knew all about clean up. I didn't know that Wu Fei did, though. "Because of Shenlong, and Nataku, they didn't get the opportunity."

If it was possible, I'd say he'd tightened up even more than he'd been before, but I was really sure he'd been at the limit already. "Because of the Gundams, I don't have my wife. Because of the Gundams, I have my entire clan, am alive, and have a purpose." Black screen.

Fuck.

So, I've logged more hours of sleep in the past three years in DeathScythe, than out of him, right? You know what the horrible problem with that is? If there's an alarm going off, doesn't matter if it's some stupid idiot squadron of Leos, or a bloody fucking mail drop, it wakes me up. Not in the best mood for Trowa. Not at all.

But hey, I wanted to know these people. So I secured the drop, and took a look.

He'd always struck me as somewhat of a cold fish. In control of everything of himself, but...too in control. I'd never seen him have any problems with anything. No outbursts, or break downs, like what Heero'd done with the doves. Nothing. So I was wondering what would be coming from him, when all shit came down, in his arena. What would it take to make him crack, even a little bit? In everything I'd seen, to date, he'd given nothing but an impassive face, impassive eyes, as he looked out from the screen.

Admittedly, even under the best of circumstances, I'm still a little bit groggy when I wake up, but I wasn't too groggy, not to see his face, and attempt to read it. Because, I mean, this is what I'd been trained for. To be alert, to be the best. When G'd been training me, it hadn't been to be one of five, it'd been to be the only. If I couldn't rely on my self, who was I suppose to do it on?

But now...it was these four other guys. And Trowa's impassive face split, and spoke.

"I was already part of the resistance. I would have stayed there, as a mechanic, or as something else." He gave an insouciant shrug to me, and a nod, and was gone.

Cold fuckin' fish. But still, probably, a good guy.

When Quatre's came in, it was a long time from Trowa's. Because he'd built ZERO in the meantime, and Trowa...well, we couldn't find him. Heero'd seen him last, and his drop to me was the last on-line communication anyone'd gotten. Oh, and all that other shit had happened, too. Like, Trowa and poor 'Scythe...and then, me and Wu Fei, and the scientists...we'd gotten off Earth. All sorts of shit.

He wasn't in Sandrock. So the backdrop was a room, plush, full of neutral browns and beiges. Must've been his father's office, or one of them. The chair he was in dwarfed him, in its leather glory. But it was still Quatre. He looked me, or the screen, straight in the eye while he took a sip of his tea.

"You know...I think it's almost ironic that my father's once again a part of it all." He smiled. "Especially considering where I am, now." Another sip. "I met H in 193. Just before I first fought." Smile, sip. "He chewed me out, in a roundabout way."

That chair, the desk...it was all so big for him. I wanted to say, too big. But I knew him. Whatever he wanted to do, he'd do it, with no hesitation, and no need for any. I smiled. I could feel it. Because it was just like any of us. No hesitation, no need for it. Story of our lives. Right.

Quatre was pushing a finger along the wood grain of the desk. Not nervous, just thoughtful, before he looked back up at "me". "This place...it reminds me of what I was. If I'd never met H, and never had any reason to...I think this would have been me." He shook his head. "Not that I would be what my father wanted me to be...but I think, I'd very soon be growing into him. Bitter. Spiteful." Sad eyes, sad smile. "Mired in my own ideals, whatever those might have ended up being." The smile faded. "I'm glad. I don't want to be his mirror image."

Heero told me in person. At the end of the war, just before he disappeared. I think he was going to go do the same thing I was—disable our Mad's labs, their bases. Just, destroy anything and everything we could find. They were dead, and gone. It was something we had to do. Alone.

We were outside, on Earth. Lost somewhere in the hustle and bustle that was the celebrations. The other guys...I don't know where they'd gone. Off by themselves, probably. Quatre might be talking to the Corps, or maybe to someone official. Who knows. He was the only one who would be.

Maybe this was the last time any of us would be in the same place at the same time...

Maybe. But then, maybe not. For some reason, I think we'd be seeing each other again. Probably when they tried to break this peace. Sometimes...sometimes I don't really like humanity, on a whole.

Moonlight. I think I'll never be tired of it. It paints everything so silver, compared to the sun. And this moonlight drew away from me, like drawing poison from a wound, the memories of the moon I had from the rest of my life. And that thought is what made me think of my question, and that Heero was the only one who hadn't answered me, yet. And since he was my drop, I knew he'd gotten it.

But I remembered it just as Miss Relena came up behind us, making enough noise to warn us. I don't think she meant to, it was just her way.

Heero and I turned to her, away from the balcony's edge. Neither of us said anything, and she apparently didn't feel compelled to stir the silence in that first minute.

After that minute or so, she turned to face Heero fully. "What are you going to do now, Heero?" her blue eyes were shadowed, as were ours, I knew. Movements were muffled in dark. He didn't shrug, or shake his head, or toss his hair back. It was as if he were a statue, in the garden of this great house, and some disembodied voice was issuing forth from his general direction.

"Whatever I need to." And he turned to walk away, hands deep in his jacket pockets.

I let him get twenty paces away, down the steps from the balcony, onto the grass of the lawn, before I quietly called out to him. "You still owe me an answer, Yuy!"

He stopped, and turned back to us. Relena was far enough away that I could tell when he looked at her, even in the dark, by the movement of his head. When he focused in on me, I held my breath. The girl standing on the balcony with me was silent.

"I'd rather be dead, Duo." There was humor, there. I nearly fell to the hard ground with laughter, because, out of all the others, his answer was identical to mine. When I looked up, it was into the eyes of a curious queen, and Heero was gone.